For Bush, read Scrooge

Health care for children arouses the president's mean streak

NEITHER fiscal restraint, nor the veto pen, has characterised President George Bush's time in the White House. America continues to run a deficit, and Mr Bush has vetoed only three bills in his whole tenure. But now that he has a Democratic Congress to battle with, the president is promising to be tougher.

Mr Bush has said he will turn away a bill that would expand the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), a scheme that insures children from low-income families, which passed the House of Representatives on September 25th. He has also threatened to veto nine of the 12 appropriations bills that make up the federal budget, because the Democrats' budget plan exceeds his own by $22 billion.

But SCHIP is extremely popular, and so is the bill that seeks to widen it to 4m more uninsured children. Since 1997, SCHIP has covered children in families that do not qualify for benefits under Medicaid, a programme for the very poor, but who still cannot afford health insurance. Under the scheme, the federal government gives a block grant to the states, which design their own benefits and eligibility criteria. The programme expires on September 30th.

House and Senate negotiators crafted a renewal plan that would add $35 billion to the programme's cost over five years and enable states to cover families with incomes at or above three times the poverty line in certain cases. Mr Bush claims that the reformed programme will attract families who already have private insurance into the state-run programme. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates that a third of families that would enroll would have access to private coverage. But Robert Greenstein, of the Centre on Budget and Policy Priorities, argues that crowding out is bound to occur as the government tries to cover more children.

Mr Greenstein speculates that the president is really trying to force Congress to attach the health-care tax-incentive proposal he unveiled in January. An aversion to government-run health-care programmes and new taxes—a tobacco-tax increase would fund the SCHIP expansion—may also be driving Mr Bush's opposition. Or he may simply be trying to re-establish his credentials as a fiscal conservative.

Whatever the truth, the White House has made an inauspicious start of its fight with Congress over federal spending. Battle royal will be joined in November.